Tim Urban

Biography

“Best keynote in years…” – Anders Janmyr, Head of the Øredev Conference, Sweden

From the most-watched TED talk of 2016, to HubSpot’s Inbound16 conference, Tim Urban is redefining the live speaking experience for the digital era. With head-spinning thinking, quirky graphics and his signature stick figures, he’s proving that complex and long form thinking can capture and captivate a short attention span world. Read More >

As the creative force behind the extremely popular Wait But Why blog, Tim has authored dozens of viral articles on subjects ranging from why we procrastinate to why we haven’t yet encountered alien life forms. Wait But Why has topped 10 million unique visitors during peak months and attracted thousands of patrons, including famous fans like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, TED Curator Chris Anderson and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams.

Known for delighting audiences with smart, fascinating and truly original content, Tim synthesizes complex concepts and presents them in a humorous, highly entertaining and memorable way. Follow his spellbinding train of thought to ignite your own insights and energize your thinking. Whatever the topic, Tim makes getting there more than half the fun. Read Less ^

Speech Topics

Based on the Most-Watched TED Talk of 2016: Why Procrastinators Procrastinate: The Never-Ending Battle in Our Heads

In college, Tim Urban’s procrastination problem got so bad that he found himself writing the first word of his 90-page senior thesis only 72 hours before it was due. After spending years trying to understand how his own mind worked, he finally put his thoughts down on paper, creating three cartoon stick drawings—the Rational Decision-Maker, the Instant Gratification Monkey, and the Panic Monster—to represent the major “players” in his head that battled over the steering wheel. The reaction to this post wildly exceeded Urban’s expectations. Read More >

Urban has received over 10,000 emails about his procrastination post, each lamenting their unique struggle with the problem, and most saying some version of “How do you know what’s going on in my head?” Tim has since dug even deeper into the issue, writing two follow-up articles, and procrastination has now become one of his most popular speaking topics. A hilarious presentation that consistently delights and inspires audiences, it is the most-watched TED talk of 2016 and one of the top 50 of all time. Read Less ^

The AI Revolution & the Road to Superintelligence

When Tim Urban began digging into research on Artificial Intelligence, he could not believe what he was reading. It hit him pretty quickly that what’s happening in the world of AI is not just an important topic, but by far THE most important topic for our future. In what Vox called his “epic series on artificial intelligence,” Urban took readers on a deep exploration of what AI is, how it works, and why it might dramatically change our lives. Read More >

The article was widely shared, even catching the eye of Elon Musk, who shared the article twice on Twitter, commenting “Excellent and funny intro article about Artificial Superintelligence! Highly recommend reading.” Urban has since turned his exploration of AI into a gripping talk—one that the head of Sweden’s Øredev conference tweeted was “the best keynote in years.” After watching the talk at Social Media Week in New York, conference founder Toby Daniels wrote that Urban “was brilliant, inspiring and terrifying at the same time, and left most of us speechless, breathless and in a mixed emotional state of wonder and awe at what the future holds.” Read Less ^

Cooks & Chefs: What it Means to Be a True Original

One day in early 2015, Elon Musk called Tim Urban on the phone. He told Urban he liked his blog, Wait But Why, and asked Urban if he’d consider doing some writing about the industries he’s involved in with his companies Tesla and SpaceX. Urban accepted the offer and went on to write four epic blog posts that Vox’s David Roberts called “the meatiest, most fascinating, most satisfying posts I've read in ages.” Read More >

While the first three posts dug into the full story with Musk and his companies, in the final post, Urban brought together six months of thinking, writing, and talking to Musk and his staff in a post that got to the core of the question, “Why is Elon Musk able to be so successful?” Urban believes it’s not Musk’s intelligence or wealth or drive that separates him so far from the crowd, but rather the way he thinks. Urban compares Musk’s way of thinking to other world-changers like Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, and John Lennon in a post that explores the simple truth about what it means to be an original. Urban’s talk on the subject galvanizes audiences by leaving them with the belief that it’s fully in their power to be more original—simply by absorbing the epiphany that the world they live in was built by people no smarter than they are. Read Less ^

Where Are All the Aliens? The Mind-Blowing Truth of the Fermi Paradox

In 1958, physicist Enrico Fermi looked up at the night sky and famously asked, “Where is everybody?” The sheer numbers of sun-like stars and Earth-like planets in our galaxy suggests that we should have seen plenty of evidence of the existence of extra-terrestrial life—and yet, we haven’t seen any…ever. This is called the Fermi Paradox, and Tim Urban’s 2014 article on the topic has been shared over 300,000 times on Facebook and has been posted over 40 times on Reddit. Urban’s talk on the Fermi Paradox walks through the 13 most likely possibilities for why we see no aliens and leaves the audience in a full existential headspin.

The Secrets Behind Communicating Complex Concepts in a Way That Delights

The most common praise Tim Urban receives for his writing is about his ability to synthesize complex concepts and present them in a clear, digestible, entertaining, and highly memorable way. He has broken down in-depth topics like the situation in Iraq, climate change, the car industry, the space industry, the timeline of history, human evolution, and a number of the psychological battles going on in the heads of all humans. Read More >

Urban has managed to write long, 10,000+ word articles that millions of people read until the end and share enthusiastically, leading Fast Company to write, “Wait But Why is disproving the notion that thoughtful, long-form content and virality are mutually exclusive.” In a talk often given to companies, marketers, and writers, Urban talks through the way he chooses topics, thinks through them, researches, brainstorms, outlines, and ultimately communicates his ideas so effectively. Read Less ^

Testimonials

"Tim Urban proved to be the ideal guest of honor at Center for Houston’s Future’s annual Dinner and Conversation. The response from our audience has been terrific. Those in attendance who had already seen his TED talk knew Tim would be entertaining, but what truly delighted them was his lightning intellect, flexible imagination, and generous good humor throughout the conversation. Everyone relished hearing all the provocative notions, theories, and insights that Tim kicked around the stage with his interrogator, Professor John Lienhard.

Perhaps the most challenging (and disturbing?) question he posed was whether machines capable of human-level intellectual activity will experience “consciousness” – and whether flipping the “Off” switch on all those machines would be a genocidal act on the part of humans … uh-oh.

Folks were enthralled by the various turns the conversation took, and no one would have predicted that the evening would end with the impact of artificial intelligence on the future of education. Such a fine time!"

- Center for Houston's Future

"Tim Urban brought his unique observances on current culture in a humorous, entertaining and unconventional style to our CLSA Forum. Fun and refreshing, his content is also thought-provoking and can be relevant to a variety of audiences. His professionalism and preparedness make him very easy to work with."

- CLSA Americas LLC

"He was everything we had hoped for and more. We loved him."

- Director of Marketing Communications, Schoology

"Tim was absolutely perfect for our event. I’ve received fantastic feedback and we couldn’t have been happier with his presence."

- Senior Director, Global Marketing, xAd, Inc.

"Went fantastic and people loved him. Thanks so much for helping us get this in place."

- McKinsey and Company

"Tim’s keynote was a full success. He was very professional and we are all happy with how things worked out. It was a pleasure to have him here in Hamburg."

- OMR

“Tim was amazing, the nicest guy and so very accommodating. His talks in both cities were very well received and he chatted with customers, which they absolutely loved – he was very approachable, which can be unusual for someone of his level. Tim is so down to earth and I think he quite liked having time away to get focused on his work. He was a real pleasure to work with.”